Being a Good Example

When my oldest four grandchildren were small, I owned commercial greenhouses.  Needless to say, the kids were on site a lot.  They actually loved being there because they could run and play up and down the aisles, pretending they were lost in the jungle, or crawl along under the benches that held the plants as if they were exploring caves.  In the summer, we filled their kiddie pool with cold, clear water so they could splash and cool off after their adventures.

The greenhouses were located on a busy highway and there was always activity on the parking lot.  Above all else, we stressed safety, though some adult usually had the children within their line of vision.

The kids knew these restrictions were for their safety, even at a young age, and seldom had to be reminded, even calling an adult to task, at times, for something they thought might be a questionable activity!

My grandchildren grew up knowing about the kinds of things used on plants.  Pesticides, insecticides, fertilizers, rooting compounds, the works.  And they knew to stay away from them.  They knew that they were dangerous.  So, when I warned them to stay away from the ‘blue water’, they didn’t even question it.

The blue water was the general all-purpose fertilizer mixture I used on almost all the plants.  It was in containers at the end of every aisle with a mixer attached to the water hose so just the right amount of nutrients could be administered.  I didn’t want the children playing in it or using it for their mud pies, or volcanos, or streams carved in the large pile of dirt outside. So, I let them assume it was as dangerous as any of the other chemicals I used.  In reality, the mix was so diluted it wouldn’t have hurt them even if they had drunk it (believe me, I checked!) but they didn’t need to know that.  They actually thought it would burn holes in their skin if it touched them and they gave it a wide berth whenever passing.

One day, my eldest granddaughter, aged four or five at the time, flitted past me in one of her teasing moods.  She said something silly, and I responded back with something equally as goofy.  She made another funny remark and laughed and ran past me.  On an impulse, I flicked the spray of water from the hose towards her.  

She stopped dead in her tracks and looked at me, bewildered.  I laughed and flicked the spray of water towards her again, this time making contact, but only slightly.  A few drops of the blue water landed on her arm.  And just like that, a fun moment became an earthshattering test for me.

She erupted in screams.  “Grandma!”  she yelled, as if in agony.  “What are you doing?”  With that, she turned and fled.

That put a stop to my watering.  I followed and found her inside, scrubbing her little arms with a towel.

“What’s wrong?”  I asked, though I thought I already knew the answer.  I was not prepared for her next words.

She turned to me with great, huge tears in her eyes, her little lip quivering.  “You sprayed me with the blue water!”  Then came the words that made my heart want to stop beating.  “Are you trying to kill me?”  But they were not the worst she would say to me that day…

By now, I was on my knees in front of her, trying to pull her close in a comforting hug and convince her that it was just a silly joke.  The blue water wouldn’t really hurt her.  She did not see it that way.  Just before she fell against me, crying, she looked into my eyes.  Hers were the color of the ocean, huge and deep and blue and I could see my reflection in their depths.  Then they came, the words that practically wrenched my heart right out of my body.  “Don’t you love me anymore?”

I was glad she had buried her face against my neck, so she couldn’t see the look on mine.  How could I now explain to this child that there was no end to the love I felt for her and there would never be a thing she could ever do to make that change.  She would never truly understand the battles I had already fought for her, nor the ones to come.  She could not yet conceive of the fact that I would give my life for hers, if it ever came to that. 

We laugh about this episode now, the day Grandma tried to kill Baby Girl with the blue water.  It’s one of those funny family stories we bring out from time to time.  But when it happened, it as not a joke and it was not funny, and grandma re-learned a valuable lesson.  

Children pay attention.  Children take you at your word.  Children watch and listen and learn from the adults around them.  And they may see situations differently than we, as adults, do.  They trust us and we need to live up to that trust.  So often, in our own ignorance,  we fail.

That day I was caught in a lie (that the blue water was very dangerous) and I couldn’t get out of admitting the truth.  It didn’t make any difference to her that I had fibbed for her own good.  That did not matter to her right then.  I had lied, which she saw as a horrible thing for her grandmother to do to her, and my credibility was now on shaky ground. Trust is a hard thing to gain back, once lost.  I learned my lesson.

Have you ever been in a situation where you believed you were doing the right thing but others viewed it very differently?  I’d love to hear your stories, if you want to share.